1. The Mother and Child Foundation believes healthy childhood should be the rule rather than the exception. Our research will help improve development outcomes for all newborns – and we need your support!

We are battling mental ill-health at its source – before and during pregnancy. Your support will help us continue our research into how the nutritional health of mothers-to-be is the key to a child’s mental wellbeing.

Our work at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital has so far enabled us to predict the chances of preterm birth based on levels of oleic acid* and other mono-unsaturated fats in a mother’s blood. The lower the levels, the greater the risk of a baby being preterm, with all the associated mental health risks.

We now need to follow up our investigations by looking at the impact of omega-3 (a fatty acid derived largely from sea foods) during pregnancy on later developmental outcomes of the children.

The ultimate aim of our campaign is to identify potential modifiable nutritional risk factors and in doing so help lower the risk of mental-health across the lifespan.

2. The Mother and Child Foundation is tackling the rise in child mental ill-health. Your support will help us fund an Online Nutritional Education Program for mothers across the world.

Photo credit: szwerink via Visualhunt / CC BY-SA

In 2007 The World Health Organization (WHO) predicted a 50% increase in child mental ill-health by 2020. It’s now 2017, but it looks like we’re going to reach that grim statistic early!

Nutrition is vital to mental health and wellbeing, in the pre-conception period and during pregnancy. Good nutrition helps ensure healthy brain development in unborn babies, giving each child the best possible start at birth. Poor nutrition condemns a new-born child to a lifetime of mental and physical disadvantage.

The rise in childhood brain disorders is the driver behind the terrifying rise in mental ill-health, which costs the US over $200 billion every year. Illnesses of the brain and mind are now our biggest health costs, ahead of cancer and heart disease combined.

The money we raise from your donations will help us launch the #Good4Brains Online Nutritional Education Program. We will bring together information that will benefit mothers across the world, based on cutting-edge scientific findings and presented in plain language. Mothers, in whose hands the early feeding of the children of this planet is placed, will be empowered with practical advice and achievable dietary changes that can save the world from a mental ill-health meltdown.

We will iron out the inconsistencies in existing nutritional advice by including research from a global network of experts. All the guidelines we give will be based on science and evidence, with the aim of optimising the health of the generations to come.

*Oleic Acid is found in oils and vegetables associated with the ‘Mediterranean’ diet. Our findings support a body of evidence showing that such diets are linked to disease prevention, a decreased risk of mental ill-health and longer life.